Control
by way2cool4uXX
Summary: And so the days went on. Until, of course, Bruce snapped. Bruce/OC
1. Self Esteem

**A/N: Gosh, Avengers blew me away. I loved the movie to bits! And I decided to write a one-shot based on it. Pairing is Bruce/OC because I love Bruce :) **

**Disclaimer - Nopey dopey, not mine. **

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The first time she saw him was during the battle with Loki and his cronies (the faceless, downright _fugly_ aliens). He was terrifying, nobody could argue with that. He was dangerous too. But she couldn't help admiring him, being grateful, when with one fluid movement he pushed her out of the way of an oncoming bullet.

He got hit instead and she cried out then, naïvely thinking it would kill him. But it didn't, and he roared in some sort of a frenzied rage, the extent of which her mind could not possibly comprehend. With her very own eyes she watched as the seemingly unscathed Hulk returned to the battle for his life. For everyone's life.

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The second time she saw him was in S.H.I.E.L.D's HQ during a briefing. She worked there, as a mere scientist and lab assistant, so she didn't understand why she of all people would be called to a hush-hush Avengers meeting.

"Glad you could join us, Miss Tyler." Director Fury said, and she blushed a bright scarlet colour; she was known for her tardiness.

"Sorry." She mumbled as everyone present shot her some kind of a glance. There were three types of glances, she decided. The apprehensive ones (from The Black Widow and Hawkeye), the raised-eyebrow _seriously?_ ones (Tony Stark and Thor) and the kind ones (Captain America, and _Him)._ For the first time she got to see the man who saved her life that fateful day; for the first time, she got to see the man he actually was_._ Not Hulk, the beast he only rarely unleashed. And boy were there things to look at.

He seemed completely focused on what Fury was saying (unlike her; she'd pay for that later), his gaze fixed on the file he was holding. His hair was untidy (_sexily_ untidy) but he never made a move to tuck it out of the way like most men did (_cough cough_ TonyandSteveandClint _cough cough)._ His body was muscular; apparently changing into a green beast from time to time gave one a gorgeous body. Or maybe it was all the running around he did, being chased down by various organisations for various reasons. The last thought made her wince.

_"-and Miss Tyler will be your lab assistant, Doctor Banner."_ Came Fury's voice from far, far away. _"Is that clear? Miss Tyler?"_

"Yeah." She answered, rather dumbly, as in that precise moment Doctor Banner looked up at her. His own dark eyes clashed with her light blue orbs and she blushed profusely, once again. _God,_ those _eyes!_ She was pretty sure she'd do _anything_ he asked if he just _looked_ at her with those eyes. And yeah, she totally wasn't crushing on him. Not at all.

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The third time she saw him was the following morning, in the lab. She was late (per usual) and he was already waiting when she burst in through the door, lab coat billowing behind her.

"Sorry." She blurted out breathlessly. No plausible excuse sprang to her lips so she stayed silent, catching her breath. Doctor Banner smiled.

"Not a problem. Shall we get started?" She frowned.

"What exactly are we working on, Doctor?"

"Director Fury was talking about it in yesterday's meeting." Doctor Banner replied absent-mindedly, fiddling with some apparatus. "You were listening, right?"

She blushed.

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She saw him every day after that. He called her by her first name (Rosanna, but he preferred the endearment Rosa) and she, in turn, called him Bruce. Mostly.

"Doctor Banner?" Okay, _sometimes._

"How many times will I have to tell you to call me Bruce?" Came his exasperated reply. She shrugged awkwardly.

"You're a _proper_ scientist, I can't just call you Bruce. It has to be Doctor Banner or Doctor Bruce or-"

"Just Bruce." And he looked at her awfully, _awfully_ intently with those dark, _dark_ brown eyes and she thought she would melt there an then. And when he didn't look away and leaned in slightly, ever so slightly, she thought her heart would stop. His lips were millimeters away from her own, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin. He was so, _so_ close and they were going to...

"Oi, doc!" This wasn't the first time she wanted to kill Tony Stark.

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Things were rather awkward after that. Avoiding each other was not an option; they worked together after all. The lab suddenly became too small and they were always too close. She didn't know how to deal with this; her whole life has been devoted to S.H.I.E.L.D. No romance, no boyfriends or anything funny like that. And she tried to ignore him, honest to god she did. Ignore those little tingles she got in his presence, the blushes that graced her face whenever spoke to her and the stuttering of her replies. Except it wasn't really working.

"Rosa. _Rosa." _He was _still _calling her by that darn nickname.

"Ye- yes?"

"You seem a little vacant today. Is everything alright?" Damn, he was not making this easy for her.

"Sure. Everything's fab." Her voice sounded slightly feeble. And so the days went on; until, that is, Bruce snapped.

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**A/N: There shall be another part to this, do not fear. And please review because we all know you want to... *pouty face* **


	2. Self Control

**A/N: Thank you SO much to everyone who reviewed the previous installment! Forgive any grammar mistakes because I am not the grammar queen (Tinkernat is, you should really check out her stories!) Anyway, on with the story!**

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_Sometimes small, seemingly insignificant things can cause a chain reaction; a slippery slope of sorts. Take a pin; it's lying there, on the floor, minding its business. Someone might see it, but no-one is bothered to pick it up. And then a person; a man, a woman, a child steps on it. And it turns out that that little pin forced a visit at the hospital. And then let's take the wound; the tiny, tiny, oh-so-insignificant wound caused by that oh-so-insignificant pin. And let's say it gets infected. But it's so small no one really notices until it's too late. And then? In order for the woman, the man, the child to survive the foot has to be removed. All because of that little, unimportant pin_.

_Now, let's take a match. Just a single match, held by a professional hand of a scientist. And let's say that match was lit. There is no danger, none whatsoever._ _But the flame, the tiny flame, gets too close to the sensitive fingertips of said scientist. In a brief moment of panic, he drops the match. A flask of chemicals is knocked over with an elbow. A fire is started. A_ _life is taken._

_A man snaps._

xxx

"Bruce? Bruce, what's wrong?" Rosanna asked, setting aside a packet of skittles she was currently munching on. Luckily for her, Bruce didn't mind if she ate in the lab (as long as she didn't contaminate any samples, of course, and she would never do that).

"Probably nothing." He mumbled, but the restlessness remained with him.

"Bruce," Yes, after seven months she had learned to call him by his first name. "You can tell me you know."

"I know, but-" Suddenly the fire alarms blared, lighting up in bright shades of red. A terror-stricken scientist barged into their lab just as the sprinklers kicked into action.

"You're to be escorted to a safe location, Doctor Banner." The man Rosa now recognised to be her colleague, Ben, almost squeaked out. Bruce paid him no attention.

"Rosa, leave." An explosion racked the ship somewhere nearby, and Rosa swayed dangerously, clutching at the nearest object she could find; which just happened to be Bruce's hand. "Go _now!" _His voice was commanding and sharp, but she could not bring herself to move. Fear paralysed her body, numbed her senses, and when the next explosion hit the lab very next to their's she only registered a faraway thud.

Vaguely, somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt someone pick her up and cradle her. A voice yelled _run, Ben _and then the whole world shook. There was light; a bright flash of light which hit her eyes like a lethal wave and then a roar. It reminded her of something, although the image was blurry. She did not have time to ponder on this newly acquired piece of information because at that moment she felt the pain. And she screamed.

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_When you are about to die, life flashes before your eyes. All the memories, one by one, even the ones you didn't realise you had. For the brain it's looking for a way out of the situation; the brain is always practical. For you it's the end. A nice end, because you are, in a way, close to your loved ones. It's giving up. But some people want to live for their loved ones. Some people don't want to give up. Some people are just as practical as their brain. And even if she didn't look it, Rosanna Tyler was one of them. _

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There was darkness. It surrounded her, engulfed her in its cold embrace. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak. She was drowning.

There was pain. Terrible, burning pain. It seemed to be everywhere; her whole body seemed to ache.

There were memories. Good ones, bad ones, all of them. She saw herself, she saw her mother, she saw her father and her sister. She saw her home. She saw Bruce.

There was a voice. It was familiar, but in her bleary state she could not make out who it belonged to. It was calling out to her. _Rosa. _That was her name. Rosanna. Rosa.

"Miss Tyler. Can you hear me? Rosanna?" With great effort, she pushed away the darkness and lifted her eyelids. Everything was faint, and she could only make out fuzzy outlines of people and objects surrounding her. "She's awake!" A bright light was promptly shone into her eyes, and she blinked. "Pupil dilation normal, heart rate steady." The flash light was gone as soon as it came, leaving behind small, black shapes. Rosa blinked again, to clear her vision.

"It hurts." Her parched lips formed the croaky words, and she winced at the pain it caused her to speak. A nurse was standing at her bedside, applying medicine to machinery which was connected to her body. _Needles. _God, she _hated _needles.

"I know, sweetie. I'll give you something for that." The nurse looked kind, with long-ish raven hair pinned up professionally in a bun; yet not in a way that made her look cold and distant. Rosanna could do nothing but lean her head back against the pillows and sigh.

"Rosa?" She did a double take, and her eyes searched for the familiar voice.

"Bruce..." She breathed out, and a smile immediately graced her lips. He looked relieved and unhappy at the same time, and she wondered why that was. "What happened?"

"Can't you remember, Miss Tyler?" A new voice joined the conversation.

"Director Fury." She cringed at the ever present ache. "To what do I owe the honour?"

"You are one of the few surviving scientists, Miss Tyler." Fury informed her gravely. "We have lost many crew members because of that fire."

"Fire..." She mumbled. "Oh, dear god!" Director Fury nodded grimly. The kind nurse gave her a cup of water which she gulped down greedily.

"Luckily for you, Miss Tyler, Doctor Banner was there." Rosanna's eyes flickered briefly to Bruce's troubled face.

"What happened exactly?"

"I'll leave you to it, doc. Glad you're alive, Miss Tyler." With those curt words, Fury left her little hospital room.

"Bruce?" He sighed.

"When the lab next to ours was blasted apart and you wouldn't move, I had to do _something. _So I told Ben to run and let the Hu- the _other guy_ take over." Bruce paused. "I'm sorry." Rosa shot him a confused look.

"You just said you saved me and you're _sorry? _I mean, are you sorry you saved me?" Bruce's eyes widened.

"Of course not! Look, when I changed and shielded you from the fire I broke three of your ribs and fractured your arm. You probably would've been better off if I hadn't done anything." Out of pure instinct, Rosanna reached over with a smile to ruffle his hair, but dropped it quickly with a hiss. Bruce winced.

"The morphine should kick in soon." He assured her, and she was glad he didn't try to apologise again.

"Thank you." She said sincerely. He smiled.

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**Okay, I'm considering writing another part but I'm not sure if I should. R&R please (you'll get lots and lots of cookies and virtual hugs). And give ideas and suggestions because that means I can WRITE! :) **


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